Automatic distributor



2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed March 18, 1968 INVENTOR CARLO MIZZAU ATTORNEY A ril 28, 1970 c. MIZZAU AUTOMATIC DISTRIBUTOR 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed March 18, 1968 ZNVENTOR CARLO MIZZAU TTORNEY United States Patent 3,508,791 AUTOMATIC DISTRIBUTOR Carlo Mizzau, Bologna, Italy, assignor to American Machine and Foundry Company, New York, N.Y., a corporation of New Jersey Filed Mar. 18, 1968, Ser. No. 716,280 Int. Cl. B65g 53/04 US. Cl. 302-28 7 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This invention relates to the automatic distributors of shredded tobacco to a plurality of cigarette-making machines the feed end of each of which is connected by means of suction feed piping to a distributing trough provided with a reciprocating bottom and end walls and receiving the shredded tobacco from a central feed chute or hopper and evenly distributing same by means of said reciprocating members thereof to the inlet ends of said suction feed pipings.

Up-to-date the even distribution of the shredded tobacco falling down from a chute or hopper to a plurality of suction tubes arranged in parallel and each leading to a. cigarette-making machine was effected either by hand or automatically by means or turntables or the like.

When the distribution is effected by hand, the outlet of the hopper or chute opens on a preferably fixed table provided with side boards in which open the suction mouths constituting the inlet ends of the conveyor ducts, each leading to a cigarette-making machine. In these kinds of distributors, the workman shifts by hand the shredded tobacco falling onto the distributing table towards those of the suction mouths which are apparently idle.

Turntables have also been devised for automatically distributing the shredded tobacco falling from a centrally opening chute onto a revolving conical bottom which throws same against a fixed annular wall to which the inlet mouths of the pneumatic tubes, which convey the shredded tobacco to the cigarette-making machines, are connected. These turntable distributors present, among others, the drawback that the shredded tobacco, on its way from the center of the turntable to the fixed annular wall, is subjected to a substantial centrifugal force tending to effect a separation of the heaviest from the lightest tobacco particles, which is detrimental to the perfection of the perfect blending of the shredded tobacco mixture.

The inconvenience of the known automatic distributors of shredded tobacco to the suction inlets of a plurality of pneumatic tubes, each of which feeds the tobacco to a separate cigarette-making machine, are overcome by allowing the shredded tobacco to fall into a trough-like container comprising a pair of parallel fixed longitudinal walls, in the central part of the longer sides of which the pneumatic feed tube inlets open, and a bottom provided with transversal end walls spaced less than the ends of said rectangular wall and adapted to be reciprocated within the said fixed longitudinal walls so as to pass during their reciprocating movement in front of said pneumatic inlets; the whole being so arranged that, when the "ice shredded tobacco is allowed to fall from a chute or the like into said trough-like distributor, it falls on different sections of the movable bottom and is brought in front of each one of one or two facing rows of suction inlets and is sucked into the pneumatic conveyor tubes without being subject to the action of centrifugal or other forces tending to unblend the tobacco to be fed to the cigarettemaking machines.

The invention will be better understood from the following specification of two preferred embodiments of the invention, which are shown by way of nonlimiting example in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows in perspective view, with parts taken away, of the distributor of shredded tobacco to a plurality of parallel suction tubes designed for conveying said tobacco to a plurality of cigarette-making machines;

FIG. 2 shows in perspective view the same distributor as in FIG. 1, with the pedestal walls and the front set of tubes and other elements removed to show the driving mechanism of the shaking distributor table;

FIG. 3 is a vertical longitudinal section through an intermediate plane of the machine shown in FIG. 1, and

FIG. 4 shows in longitudinal vertical section a second embodiment of distributor provided with a different tableshaking mechanism.

With reference to the drawings, the tobacco distributor comprises a channel shaped elongated container or trough having a pair of fixed parallel longitudinal side walls 4 and, preferably, also a pair of transversal walls 104 at the ends of walls 4. This trough 4104 is open at its bottom and rests with the lower edges of the walls 4104 upon a rectangular frame 7 supported by bracket members 10 fastened to a pedestal frame 13 provided with walls and doors 5 and enclosing the driving mechanism of a shaking distributing table 1-11 now to be described.

Table 1-11 comprises a rectangular bottom plate 1 having a length substantially less than the length of the trough 4-104 and transversal end walls 11. Said table is fastened upon a truck frame 12 provided with wheels 9 thus forming a carriage 1-11-129 rolling on rails 2 supported by said supporting brackets 10.

In a position intermediate the ends of the trough side walls 4 open with their inlets 103 two rows of suction tubes 3 connected to a suction conveying plant and adapted to suck shredded tobacco supported by the shaking table 1 in front of tube ends 103.

In correspondence of the tube ends the trough walls 4 receive from hopper-like boards 14 the shredded tobacco falling down from a chute 8 (FIG. 4).

The table 1 is reciprocated in both directions (arrows Fl-FZ) by conventional means (as those which will be described hereinafter), until the transversal walls 11 do not surpass the last of the suction tube inlets 103.

The reciprocation of the table in both direction from a position as shown in FIG. 4, in which the left-hand wall 11 lies before the first tube inlet 103 to another position in which the right-hand wall 11 lies just past the last tube inlet 103 may be effected in many ways, two of which will be described hereinafter.

Thus for example, in the embodiment as shown in FIG- URES 1 through 3 within the base 5 of the distributor a reversible electric motor 15 is mounted, which through worrnand worm wheel speed-down gear 1718 drives slowly a pulley 16 provided with two adjoining peripheral grooves, in each of which a cord 19, respectively 20 is mounted. Cord 19 is fastened by one of its ends at 119 to the pulley 16, is passed in clockwise direction in one of said grooves around the said pulley 16 and thereafter around the return pulley 219 which is mounted onto the frame 13, the said cord 19 being fastened by its other end in the central point 21 of the wheeled frame 12. Similarly, the other cord is fastened by one of its ends in 120 to the pulley 16 and is passed in anticlockwise direction around the same pulley 16 and thereafter around a return pulley 220 mounted onto the frame 13, while the opposite end of said cord 20 is also fastened to a central point 21 of frame 12. Under these conditions, when the pulley 16 is turned by the motor in anticlockwise direction, the cord 19 is wound up around pulley 16, while the cord 20 is uncoiled from the same, so that the table 1 is shifted to the left, as shown in FIG. 3.

When the transversal table wall 11 has reached its end position in proximity of an adjoining tube outlet 103 it abuts against a conventional limit switch (not shown) which reverses the direction of rotation of the motor 15, thus driving the table 1 in opposite direction until, at the other end, another limit switch again reverses the direction of the motor.

In the embodiment as shown in FIG. 4, a motor 115 drives through chain drives 28 and 29 a shaft provided as its ends with a pair of parallel sprocket wheels 24 connected by means of a pair of parallel chains 22 to another pair of sprocket wheels 23 (of said wheel and chain pairs, only one is visible in the drawing).

The reciprocating .table 1, which is wheeled as in the preceding example, is provided with a pair of parallel depending lugs 27 provided with vertical slots 26 in which the rollers 25 are slidably mounted. Said rollers project sidewise from one point of the chains 22 and mounted at the ends of a conventional connecting pin (not shown).

The operation of this device is apparent: when the pin 25 comes to be in correspondence of either of the sprocket wheels 23 or 24, it slides upwardly or downwardly along slot 26 and passes to the upper run to the lower run of chain 22, or vice-versa, thus reversing the running direction of plate 1, just when either of the transversal walls 11 comes to be a little away from the first, or last, of the inlets 103, as the case may be.

During this to-and-fro movement, the tobacco falling from chute 8 and hopper-like boards 14 is sucked from the nearest suction tube inlets 103 and is conveyed to the corresponding cigarette-making machines, without undergoing a sensible alteration in its blending.

The length of the zone in which the shredded tobacco is allowed to fall, preferably but not necessarily corresponds, to the length of the rows of inlets 103. Thanks to the reciprocating motion of the table 1 along the rows of inlets 103 (arrows F1 and F2), the shredded tobacco, which is allowed to fall onto the said table 1, is by the same distributed to the various inlets 103 and is sucked through these inlets 103 by the respective pneumatic-conveyor tubes 3, any time the corresponding cigarette-making machines are requiring it. Such a request, that is, the mass being sucked by the single tubes 3 for the pneumatic conveyance, can be established by means of a hand and/ or automatic control, according to the quantities needed by the single cigarette-making machines, or according to a programmed feeding cycle.

Of course the invention is not limited to the embodiments, as being afore-specified and shown, but can be widely varied and modified, above all in construction and in particular as regards the reciprocating table-driving device, without departing from the leading principle as abovespecified and hereinafter claimed.

What is claimed is:

1. An automatic distributor for feeding shredded tobacco to a plurality of cigarette-making machines, comprising a substantially horizontal table, onto which the shredded tobacco is continuously fed, characterized by the feature that said table is encircled by walls from which peripherally depart suction tubes for the pneumatic conveyance of the shredded tobacco to the single cigarette-making machines, and that the table is reciprocated with a substantially straight movement parallel to the plane of the same table, and the inlets of the suction tubes for the pneumatic conveyance are arranged in at least one row along at least one of the sides of said table and parallelly to the direction of its reciprocating movement thereof, while the shredded tobacco is fed onto the table in a fixed central position, in correspondence of the inlets of the pneumatic-conveying tubes.

2. A distributor according to claim 1, in which the table presents, transversally to the direction of its reciprocating motion, a relatively small width and therefore an elongated form in the direction of its reciprocating motion.

3. A distributor according to claim 1, in which the reciprocating-motion table is provided at its ends with transversal walls and slides between two fixed longitudinal walls in which open the aligned inlets of the pneumatic-conveyor tubes in front of the longer sides of the reciprocating table.

4. A distributor according to claim 1, in which the reciprocating-motion table is mounted onto a carriage rolling on tracks, means being provided for driving back and forth said carriage on said-guide tracks which extend in the longitudinal direction of the said table.

5. A distributor according to claim 1, in which the reciprocating motion table is mounted on a carriage mounted movable on substantially horizontal guides; a pair of spaced parallel lugs depending from said carriage and each provided with a substantially vertical slot; at least an endless chain having superposed upper and lower runs, extending below said carriage guide tracks and between said carriage lugs, said endless chain being provided with an outwardly projecting pin provided with end rollers and extending into the pair of said vertical slots of said lugs, and means for continuously driving said endless chain whereby said projecting pin by passing from the upper endless chain run to the lower one and vice-versa drives, through said pin, said carriage alternately in both directions.

6. A distributor according to claim 1, in which the reciprocating motion table is mounted movable on substantially horizontal guides; a reversible direction electric motor provided with stop-down gear; pulleys driven by said motor; flexible mean connecting said pulleys to said table, so as to drive same alternately in either direction according to the direction of rotation of said reversible motor, and conventional switches for reversing the running direction of said motor at the end of each predetermined stroke.

7. An automatic distributor for feeding shredded tobacco from a hopper to a plurality of cigarette-making machines comprising a trough-shaped container under said hopper, having elongated longitudinal walls; a plurality of suction tubes opening in a central position of said trough longitudinal walls and leading to cigarettemaking machines to be fed with shredded tobacco; a movable bottom plate provided with end walls in said trough, said bottom plate having a length substantially less than the length of said trough; and means for reciprocating said bottom in said trough until either of its end walls comes in proximity of the corresponding suction inlet while the opposite end wall comes to be in proximity of the corresponding trough'end.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,861,840 11/1958 Powischill 302-28 2,923,574 2/1960 Fuss et al. 302-28 3,402,970 9/1968 Shroyer 30227 ANDRES H. NIELSEN, Primary Examiner 

